The Inner Movement

by Brandt Legg

  “Exactly,” I said.

  “But, Nate, I do believe peace and nonviolence should be pursued at any price. The question is, am I strong enough to live... and die by my convictions?”

  “Who’s that?” Kyle pointed to a Jeep approaching, leaving a long dust cloud in its wake.

  “My bet is it’s your friend Spencer,” Yangchen said, looking disappointed.

  “How did he get here so fast?” Amber asked.

  “Portal. They’re all over Taos.”

  “If you two don’t get along, then why is he coming?”

  “For you.”

  “Spencer doesn’t want you to influence Nate about using nonviolence in the Movement?” Amber asked Yangchen.

  “Factions and disagreements,” Tiller said.

  “Yes, Amber. Spencer believes the ends justify the means. We are both committed to returning to our souls and enlightenment. This, of course, means that Lightyear and others must change; we agree on that, and on many, many things we share common beliefs. But how those goals are reached is where we differ.”

  “He wants to use violence and you don’t?” Kyle asked.

  “It’s not that he wants to use violence—I think he prefers not to use it—but, he is willing to use it... and I am not.”

  The white Wrangler was closer now. Although a brisk morning, it was sunny and the Jeep’s top was down. Spencer sat in the passenger seat, while a man I recognized from the photos of Booker’s employees drove.

  “Clastier is our only hope now, Tiller. Will you see to it?” Yangchen said.

  “What about Clastier?” I asked.

  “You need to know him better. Will you go with Tiller?”

  “Where? Why?”

  “Spencer will want you to go with him. Please, Nate, ask him to wait. Let Tiller first show you more of Clastier, more of who you are. There is time for this. Please.”

  I looked at Kyle. “Let’s hear what Spencer has to say,” he said.

  “Remember what Wandus taught you,” Amber said. “It’s all connected. And all your lifetimes are one to your soul. Clastier is you; that time is part of this. Trust yourself.”

  Linh was about to speak, but the Jeep arrived.

  Spencer climbed out, nodded at me, then walked straight to Yangchen.

  “What were you thinking?” he said to her. “Do you realize the consequences?”

  43

  “I did what was necessary.”

  “For who? You or the Movement?” Spencer asked in a calm whispered tone that didn’t match his obvious frustration.

  “What’s necessary for the Movement is the same for me.”

  “You believe that, don’t you?”

  “Hey, would someone like to explain what you’re talking about?” I asked.

  “When Yangchen decided to kidnap you—” Spencer began.

  “I did not kidnap them; I saved them.”

  “They should have gone back to Outin.”

  “They were nowhere near the entrance when I found them.”

  “As if that matters. And what about the advanced Kellaring? What do you think will come of that?”

  “Wait... are our families safe?” I asked Yangchen.

  “That’s not a fair question,” she said.

  “Seems simple enough to me,” Kyle said.

  “What do you think Lightyear is going to do when their remote viewers continually report that you’re with your mother, Nate? They will keep searching, asking and arresting her. They won’t believe she isn’t hiding you or doesn’t know where you are. These people use torture, and it doesn’t even need to be secret; the government sanctions it.”

  “Is this true?” Linh asked.

  “We can turn off Kellaring right now,” Kyle said.

  “No!” Spencer and Yangchen said in unison.

  “Why not?” I asked.

  “We’d be massacred in minutes,” Yangchen said.

  Spencer nodded.

  “How can we help them?” Linh asked.

  “Is love enough?” Yangchen asked.

  “No. Why did you do this?” Linh asked.

  “Listen to me Linh. Spencer doesn’t know how Lightyear is going to respond, but I can tell you this: if I hadn’t picked you up, all of you would have died. That is the truth. And I’m sure your parents would rather give their lives so that you could live.”

  “That’s a choice between us and them,” Linh shot back. “And Spencer said we were supposed to go back to Outin, so we weren’t going to die, right?”

  Yangchen looked at Spencer, and he shook his head. She stared out across the sagebrush to the mountains.

  “What?” I demanded.

  “Linh—” she began.

  “Yangchen, no,” Spencer said.

  “You were going to die at Outin, all of you. Only Nate survived.”

  Silence. Everyone let it sink in. Spencer and I stared at each other.

  “You’re unbelievable, Spencer. Is this a game? Are you placing bets on who dies when? On which future we wind up in?”

  “Nate—”

  “No Spencer, I’m not interested. You were supposed to be helping me save the girls, not letting them walk into a death trap. How do you sleep?” I scoffed. “Come to think of it, do you even sleep? Are you even human?” I walked to the Range Rover. “Tiller, let’s go meet Clastier.”

  Tiller looked at Yangchen, she nodded. Linh followed me.

  “Nate, I thought we were beyond this,” Spencer said.

  “So did I.” I got in, slammed the door then rolled down the window as Linh opened the backdoor. “Amber, Kyle, let’s go.”

  “Yangchen, can I stay here? Will they be long?” Amber asked.

  “Of course. They’ll be back soon.”

  “I’m staying too,” Kyle said. “I want to talk to Spencer... someone has to.”

  “Why, what’s the point? He only tells you what he thinks you need to know.”

  We drove across the mesa in silence until Tiller turned onto a paved road. “What do you think we should do about our parents?” Linh asked.

  “Tiller, can you get a message to them?” I asked.

  “Between Booker, Yangchen, and Spencer, I’m sure we can figure something out.”

  “No, I want you to do it. Do you know someone you trust who can reach our parents? Now that we’re beyond Outin’s reverse time, Linh’s parents will be wondering where she and Kyle are, and Amber’s mother too.”

  “I have a few friends up there. Might be able to do something, depending on the heat. There are probably more feds in Ashland than DC right now.”

  “I appreciate you trying. Once we get back, we’ll sit with the others and come up with a message.”

  We crossed the gorge I’d seen from the air; it was even more dramatic up close. The Rio Grande washed through, 700 feet below, providing a stunning backdrop for a surprisingly large portal visible only to me. We were approaching town. Linh was tense, we stopped so I could go back and sit next to her. “I don’t want anything to happen to my mom and dad.”

  “I know. We’ll figure it out. I’m sure Kyle is pumping Spencer for every possible way to protect them right now.”

  “Amber is probably doing the same with Yangchen.”

  “Definitely,” I said, while wondering the real reason Amber stayed behind.

  Tiller parked in a dusty lot behind several small adobe buildings. We followed him around the corner and up the street until he stopped at a window to talk with a Native American woman. Another twenty-five feet and, quite unexpectedly, I was staring at a thousand-year-old Pueblo. It was the first time I’d visited the site of an Outview, and it was more than I could handle. I collapsed to the ground.

  44

  Tiller and Linh managed to get me to a bench. I was dizzy with Clastier’s life and words. It came not as an Outview but as memory. The taste of elk and roasted chilies I’d never eaten, the fear and love of the Catholic Church, candlelit discussions, all came back as if I was thinking about the sl
ide on my first-grade playground. Clastier’s passions and beliefs were mine. Thomas Mercer and Tagu, who had done so much to assist me/Clastier, were familiar to me in their appearances and personalities, even the sound of their voices. They were friendships greater than those of Kyle, Linh, and Amber.

  I recalled angry meetings with the bishop and fellow priests, pleading with me to recant, and the day a stranger approached me at El Santuario de Chimayo, saying the Catholic hierarchy would soon banish me and then order my imprisonment and death. The stranger was Spencer in another incarnation. It was our only meeting in that life. On the long journey back to Taos, I/Clastier had planned my escape. That evening a priest, who’d been a lifelong friend, hid me in San Francisco de Asis Mission Church, where I remained hidden for several days until it was safe for Tagu to arrange for my refuge at Taos Pueblo.

  Linh and Tiller listened to me babble about my life, nearly two centuries earlier, before Tiller suggested we find the room I stayed in as Clastier. Remarkably, I knew just where it was, now a tiny shop selling Indian jewelry and pottery. An old woman nodded as we entered. The fire burned in the same place it did when I was there as Clastier, and the scent of cedar and piñon pushed me into that life, as mine as Nate dissipated with the wood-smoke. I sank to the floor and, to everyone’s surprise, spoke to the woman in the native language of Tewa. She looked at me, concerned. I gulped the stale air, trying not to pass out, and told her I wasn’t feeling well.

  “The walls speak,” she looked around, waving, grinning a toothless smile. “Remember things they tell you. For a thousand winters the smoke has carried a message to the sky.”

  I thanked her and asked if it would be okay to stay a while. She nodded. Linh and Tiller wanted to know what she said and if I was all right. Linh told me later they waited outside for over two hours, while I sat in contemplation, recalling Clastier and his/my writings from that lifetime. The philosophies so threatened and angered the Church that, to this day, the destruction of any remaining Clastier papers, is still a priority of the Vatican.

  When I emerged, I peered at Linh and Tiller, expecting Tagu and Thomas Mercer. I looked up at sacred Taos Mountain, recalling the Outview of me fleeing along the narrow river, miles up through pine forest before reaching Blue Lake. It was all so immediate: the leathery smoked scent from elk hide, the fear in Tagu’s voice as he warned of the Bishop’s posse, the ache in my calves. As I wondered how I’d been tangled into so many secrets and hidden knowledge, “it is all connected, the knowledge must see light,” Wandus’ words echoed.

  Tiller interrupted, “Nate, do you understand why I brought you here?”

  “Yes. And thank you.”

  “Why?” Linh asked.

  “The core of Clastier’s philosophy was peace.”

  “What would he have done against Lightyear? Could he have stuck to nonviolence?”

  “In many ways the opposition I faced as Clastier was a stronger force than Lightyear. The Catholic Church had been the single greatest power on earth for hundreds of years, controlling kings and conquering lands, shaping the world we know today.”

  “What happened to Clastier?”

  “You can see, he lived again as me and others. But the real question is what happened to his teachings, the writings?”

  “Well?”

  “Thomas Mercer got them out of New Mexico and hid the papers back east in North Carolina.”

  “Then what?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “But you could recreate those, couldn’t you?”

  “The authentic papers are needed, if they’re to have an impact.”

  “Can we find them?”

  “That doesn’t appear to be my destiny,” I said, crouching in the dust. “I have things far more important to risk my life for. My lifetime as Clastier has taught me much, but his teachings are on their own.”

  “What about Rose’s journal?”

  “I don’t know if those pages were to lead me here, or if they have something to do with stopping Lightyear.”

  “So, is Yangchen right and Spencer wrong?”

  “Clastier thought it best to avoid judgments like that. Peace is the path. Our souls cannot be reached through violence.”

  “So, we’ve been wrong?”

  “No, we’ve been learning.”

  45

  When we returned, Tiller gave us the key to his Earthship. Kyle and I would share one room, Linh and Amber another. Fresh clothes and jackets awaited on soft futon beds. We all wrote messages to our parents, careful not to say where we were. Tiller promised he would do his best to see them delivered.

  “I asked Spencer why he was going to let us die at Outin when he had promised to help save Amber and Linh and stop the mall attack,” Kyle said, once we all gathered again.

  “I’ll bet he had an interesting answer.”

  “He did, I wish I could explain it like he did but—”

  I interrupted and in my best Spencer impersonation said, “I’m trying, but it’s very challenging—juggling and weaving through dimensions...”

  “How’d you know?”

  “I can read minds, remember? But you don’t need to be psychic. I’ve heard his excuses so many times.” I walked over to the large built-in planters where vegetables were growing and marveled at indoor trees, heavy with fruit. “And you know something, I do believe he’s trying to help. He knows so much more than I’ll ever understand about fate, destiny, time, and dimensions. It doesn’t make sense that he’s not the one supposed to be leading the Movement.” I sat on a small stool next to a pond full of fish. “But he and I aren’t always going to agree on the best approach, and I’m not going to leave our lives in his hands anymore.”

  “Then what are we going to do? Who are we going to trust?” Linh asked.

  “Me. We’re going to trust me.”

  “Okay,” Kyle said.

  “I think that’s a great idea, Nate,” Amber said. “You haven’t met all these mystics by accident, including Spencer. They’re here to help you, even die for you, like Crowd.”

  “I know. His death will always keep me humble.”

  Work occupied us for the next few weeks. December was mild in the high desert. We pounded dirt in tires for a new Earthship and tended indoor gardens, which grew a large amount of the food we were eating. I trained seventeen people in basic soul-powers. Even before the introductions, these people knew me. It wasn’t just the media reports; I was a legend in the Movement; tracing the origins of stories about me became a hobby of Linh’s.

  The advanced Kellaring was working so well that I started to relax for the first time since Cervantes. Teaching the others was difficult, but Yangchen also taught me a few new tricks. Many were beyond her capabilities, but I could do them as one of the seven. They would take practice, but she reminded me how to strengthen or weaken the powers of others; the way to manipulate water, light, shadows, and darkness; and the technique to change objects temporarily, or even permanently. Each time I learned a new power, the next one came easier; that was the promise of the five great powers.

  Kyle said Spencer wouldn’t leave without me, but he didn’t want to have “another unnecessary confrontation.” Still, there were large periods of time no one seemed to know where he was. Kyle, the girls, and I meditated several times a day, and it helped us find a calm center to rely on. Spencer and I had been through too much over many lifetimes, and it was complicated, filled with trust and mistrust, competition and collaboration. I needed to know more and was determined to work with him in this life to help the Movement and defeat Lightyear, both necessary to achieve goals of keeping the girls alive, protecting the Jadeo, and getting Clastier’s work out.

  Yangchen said it was fortunate that no one had recognized me at the Pueblo, but from then on, when outside Greater World, I’d shapeshift into a freckled face with curly red hair. With practice I could hold the “shape” for hours and it left me only mildly tired. Kyle and the girls were also able to do short periods as l
ong as they didn’t deviate too far from their true form. But the most important thing Yangchen taught me was how to take Kyle’s theory of using Vising to read me and project my experience to others. In that way it was possible for Kyle, Tiller, the girls, and Yangchen to see me meeting with Storch. It was a major step because if enough people could see the damaging meeting, Storch and Lightyear could be brought down.

  Yangchen agreed that if there were a way to somehow record the scene so it could be shown online and televised, IM’s victory would be assured. “There’s only one individual who could possibly figure out how to do such a thing,” she said.

  “Who?”

  “Spencer Copeland.”

  “Let’s go talk to him.”

  “We can’t. He’s not here.”

  “What? I thought he wasn’t leaving without me. When’s he coming back?”

  “He didn’t say when he’d return,” Yangchen said, with a grave look on her face. “But if Spencer is willing to leave you here alone with me, then whatever took him away must be critical.”

  46

  Waiting for Spencer to come back was painful; his absence heightened our concerns about our families and the mall attack. But Tiller was monitoring the media and said nothing unusual was being reported. Thinking of doing any of this without Spencer left me anxious. He and I were interconnected, and as angry as he made me, there was no one more important in my life.

  I took to meditating while levitating over the gorge at night so I couldn’t be seen. The portal I’d spotted on my first day was one of several. Yangchen claimed not to know anything about them, but I wasn’t sure she was being honest. It would be too dangerous to explore them without knowing more. I could wind up anywhere, in any time.

  Thinking about Clastier also occupied my thoughts. It was liberating to recall a lifetime without an Outview, but something blocked my view of Clastier’s later existence and I needed to know how he died.

  The four of us often began our days at one of the several hot springs along the Rio Grande. We would meditate or talk about powers, occasionally bringing up our happy lives before Lightyear. That was tough for everyone, so we never dwelled on it.